In Search Of Wonderland
by lyrainthedark
Summary: A decade has passed since the end of Voldemort's second war, when Draco Malfoy finds himself with a peculiar problem. A furry problem. A problem with fangs and fuzzy ears, a problem with a cottonpuff of a tail - but then he's always had a knack for getting himself into trouble, and this time Luna Lovegood knows the way out. A bit of comedy, a bit of drama, a bit of romance...
1. Chapter 1

_~Drabble Collection: In Search Of Wonderland~_

**I**

**What The Rabbit Thought Of Alice **

**(And Could Not Say)**

"...And as it stands, there's nothing we can do. There is a reason why there are so few _animagi_, Lord Malfoy; there is a _reason_ why it is _not_ recommended that individuals attempt the transformation until they know _everything_ about the animal into which they shall transform."

A snarl answered this pronouncement – an impressive one, considering that the one making it was less than two feet tall.

"Anger won't help things, Lord Malfoy; there must be something peculiar about your _animagus_ form which prevents the influence of wizard magic from taking hold. I'm afraid that until you manage to transform your_self_ into yourself that you will be...stuck that way."

Another snarl echoed around the tiny room. The Saint Mungo's Healer responsible for tending to this rather _odd _patient was quick to back toward the door and exit with a little bow in Lord Malfoy's direction. He did _not_ want to be the one to discover that the unidentifiable animal was venomous, or spat acid, or breathed fire -

The healer breathed a sigh of relief as he closed the door, and made his way down the hall to the duty station to make his report. Behind him, Draco Malfoy, Lord of the Most Ancient House of Malfoy, scion of ancient bloodlines pure and untainted, sniffed in irritation at the disinfected hospital air and settled himself more firmly on the table.

His fangs glittered in the bright light; his eyes shone red and gleaming and the pure, white softness of his coat shone with health -

And still he twitched his fuzzy ball of a tail, and pawed at his long, rabbit ears, and wondered -

_What the hell have I become?_

There was a knock on the door, and the Healer poked his head back in cautiously.

"Lord Malfoy, they've sent for a specialist from the Ministry, from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, Beast Division. Hopefully they will be able to assist you in determining what your _animagus_ form actually..._is_...and then we can work on finding further help for you at that time."

There was a twitch of tail and a flicker of ears.

The Healer took that for acquiescence and let himself back out into the hall.

Draco only quivered at the click of the door shutting, and continued to glare forward into space, gnashing his impressive assortment of teeth at no one.

Privately, he had already come to the conclusion that it had been a terrible idea to become an _animagus_; if it took until morning for his new circumstances to find their way into the Daily Prophet, he would be surprised. After all - the fall of the great and powerful, isn't that what _news_ is all about?

The door opened again and he turned toward it reflexively – Merlin, but this body was jumpy – and saw in the door a pale and luminescent sheet of blonde hair swinging back and forth above a lovely, feminine curve of back and buttocks.

The red rabbit eyes widened, and his thoughts jumped to a conclusion.

_Veela?_

But when she turned he saw that was not so, and could not be, because he knew this girl – _woman _ – knew her too-blue, too-wide, too-lovely eyes and all the shades of pain and joy they wore.

"Hello, Draco."

It was _Lovegood_.

_Luna._

A/N: So...I was supposed to be writing Bridge of Dreams, but instead, this happened. Mostly because Velvet_Sometimes got me started, and then my evil twin kept me going...yeah. I'm pretty doomed. But the good news is that this won't delay anything else any more than it already has, because...it's done. Complete. But not here, nor now. There are ten chapters, shiny and new, and they shall be posted...shortly. So!

Please Review!


	2. Chapter 2

_~Drabble Collection: In Search Of Wonderland~_

**II**

**What Alice Said To The Rabbit**

**(While Keeping Her Thoughts To Herself)**

It was, Luna thought, perfectly appropriate. Draco Malfoy, Lord and ambitious and snide and arrogant and all the things that he was – yes, this was exactly right. Her eye was caught by the twitching of his tail; it was...puffy. Poofy. _Fluffy_, even. A perfect cotton-ball of a rabbit's tail that twitched in time with the pert, pink velvet _wiffle_ of his sniffing nose.

Of course she knew the problem immediately; it was the fangs throwing the healers off, the fangs always did.

"Draco, by what chance did you happen to be turned into an _Interfectorum Lepus_? I spend years with daddy trying to find one near Antioch, but none of the rumors seemed true – Draco?"

He sat very still, and stared at her, and then turned purposefully around so that the cotton ball of his tail and the points of his ears were all she could see.

"Oh, I see – well it will be quite a useful _animagus_ form as long as it isn't a curse."

Draco shivered; his ears rose an inch or so, and then relaxed.

The tail continued to twitch.

"I'm not allowed to leave, you know. Threatening me won't do any good -"

A flurry of furry violence and the dark probability of a blonde's demise manifested mid-sentence. All his fangs bared, achieving a speed that came remarkably close to breaking the sound barrier, and immune to any magic she would be able to think of – he knew, the Healers had tried – Draco raced for a hold on her throat.

It was partially the rabbit's killer instinct...

But mostly he just wanted to shut her up.

She hadn't said _anything_, but he knew what she was thinking; her eyes had been fixed on his tail the whole _bloody_ time! And anyway -

_And anyway, how the hell is she reading my mind? I'm a – I'm a – I'm a Killer Rabbit, for Merlin's sake!_

"Don't worry, it's only because that's how I _see_ – and no biting, Draco! We're not nearly that well acquainted, even if you _have _seen me naked."

Her words came dimly through a faint haze; he felt as if he had been hit with a bludger to the face.

"You have been hit with a bludger to the face, Draco. It's one of the nine ways _Merlin's Magical Bestiary_ recommends managing the Killer Rabbit. Do be careful; that was a rather harder hit than I expected."

Draco stayed very, very still where he had fallen on the floor.

_Life is not fair. Life is just...not fair at all._

A/N: As promised, chapter 2...shortly to be followed by 3-10. I know, I know, I'm awesome - so

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	3. Chapter 3

_~Drabble Collection: In Search Of Wonderland~_

**III**

**The Rememberings of Rabbits**

**(Tend To Come Mostly In Dreams)**

Whether what Luna – _Lovegood_ – had said was true or not, she did stay with Draco and went nowhere; the little room he had been sequestered in when he arrived, in the arms of a confused and somewhat conflicted House Elf, had its own loo attached and was apparently being kept undisturbed by the outside world.

Perhaps his fangs had disturbed that Healer more than he thought?

For a moment – just a moment – he found the idea truly amusing – but then it only reminded him of the indignity and annoyance of his present situation, and he proceeded to sulk. Luna – _Lovegood_ – why did he keep thinking of her in such familiar terms – was not interested in his behavior, being occupied with reading one of her father's eternally odd magazine publications – and sulking grows tiring quickly if one is not being observed.

Luna – _Lovegood_ –_ Lovegood – Lovegood –_ only turned her eyes toward him again when she thought that he had finally sulked himself into sleep, but he caught the blue glimmer of her gaze at the edge of wakefulness, and brought it with him into his dreams.

Then she went to the edge of the table on which he was seated, and began to stroke the deadly softness of his pristine white fur. She spoke quietly, so as not to wake him, but in conversational tones – as if he was still awake, and not a rabbit, and might answer.

"You know, Draco, a Killer Rabbit – it's a very interesting creature. It's not meant to be a killer – it's the only predatory rabbit, even among magical species – and it isn't born from its mother with terrible fangs and bloodthirsty instincts. The Killer Rabbit is a magical rabbit that has been forced to abandon its previous nature...but no one knows how it happens.

"I think you can't transform back into yourself, because that is the nature of what you are, what you have become; you have abandoned your _own_ nature, to become something with fangs that have no purpose but to steal life."

Her voice is winding and echoing down into Draco's dreams, but he is not hearing what she says there. There, he is back in time, back ten years before in the worst days of the neverending-endless-war. Before _Potter_ had achieved his last bit of glory; before the last hopes of his parents and their fellows and all those dreams they had instilled him him had faded forever..

She had really been Lovegood in those days, not _Luna_; it was not until halfway through the torture that she became Luna.

Because his father called her Lovegood, and Aunt Bella chanted _Loony Loony Loony Loony _until he thought his ears would crack; from that or the silence, because Luna did not speak or scream or cry. Only sometimes she panted, or gasped strangely – the gasps were terrifying -

And one night, when he couldn't take it any more, he went down to the cell of this girl who had walked the hall of Hogwarts with him, and left a clean, refilling bucket of cold, clear water; a plate of sandwiches that she could hide – a cracked, old cup no one would miss to drink from.

She had stood up right in front of him and taken the filthy, ripped robes from her body, and stood naked and gleaming, soft mounds of breasts and moonstruck hair – she had taken the bucket and held it over her head and let the water cascade down, and down, and down, and down -

He had watched her for a long time, and then turned and let her be.

The sound of the water followed him up the stairs and through the winding of his dreams.

A/N: Chapter three is a chapter indeed, and reviews are pleasing from those who read!

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	4. Chapter 4

_~Drabble Collection: In Search Of Wonderland~_

**IV**

**The Dreams of Alice Are Dreams Indeed**

**(Except When They Are Memory)**

There had been a time Luna had thought she would never be clean again. There had been a time – weeks or months, she had never been able to count the days – when she had believed that there were stains that could not be washed away, flotsam and jetsam that would splash around in the soul and disappear for a while, only to wash up in front of her eyes at the strangest moments.

Luna is thinking about this because she can see the dream that Draco is dreaming; he has the mind of a man but his body is that of a beast, and everything about him floats too close to the surface now. She sees herself at her most desperate moment through the eyes of an outsider, and wonders why it is that he sees her as _luminous_ -

But she is reminded that she asked for this assignment because of that very moment; because she is qualified, perhaps the only one qualified, but also because she owes him, personally, for one instant in which her faith in herself and in mankind had been restored.

An act of kindness from an enemy...

One bucket of water, one endless, welling flow of cold water – so cold, cold enough to have come from some deep spring set high in the mountains; cold as meltwater from a glacier, but clear and clean and perfect.

She could still taste it, still feel it running over her skin if she thought hard enough about it. She had tried many times, but she had never been able to conjure the same thing for herself; even the strongest focus on that cold memory could not bring it into her hands. She, like, Draco, knew it only in her dreams...but dreams are a poor substitute for reality.

Still, she was encouraged that his case was not too hopeless. For a moment, with a glimmering of magic, his fur had shone pale gold instead of white; for a moment, deadly fangs had receded and the long, stirring whiskers gained a platinum gleam.

The moment coincided with the memory – with the silence that had passed between them, she beneath a waterfall that had cleansed her soul, and he beneath a cascade of something he has not known since.

Near morning she dozed.

Like a spring, the water ran from Draco's dreams to hers; she awoke refreshed, and with an urgent need to pee. Draco had been awake since dawn, watching Luna; he had dreamed other things, he knew, but only she remained in his memory, as if calling out to him.

It was when Luna came back from the loo that she noticed a change in him that had not vanished with the dream.

"Draco – your eyes are blue!"

He stared at his reflection on the glass of the room's single window, and saw it was true.

A/N: No more rhyme, this time.

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	5. Chapter 5

_~Drabble Collection: In Search Of Wonderland~_

**V**

**The Rabbit Hunts For Greener Grass**

**(It Is Well Known Where That Grows)**

Draco's immediate hope, considering that nothing had been done to him during the night, was that the transformation was beginning to wear off on its own. He considered that perhaps he might eventually run out of magic to sustain it, and then revert to his own body -

"No, Draco, it doesn't work that way. Who taught you about magic?"

Luna is staring at him with her wide, pale eyes; hair always falls from behind her right ear to cover her right eye, and she is always pushing it back again. His eyes track the motion, but he thinks about her question.

_Who taught me about magic?_

When he was little, young enough that he could barely speak, he remembers being told about his own nature, about magic and the world, about blood and what lies within it -

"But you know that's all nonsense, don't you? Magic isn't in the blood, it's in _all _of you. Every bit, every particle of being; blood and bone, skin and organs – mind and body and soul, all of it. If magic could wear out of you that way...well, it does, but not until you die, and even then it takes a long, long time."

Scowling, snarling, for the first time Draco directs his thoughts purposefully in her direction – _you, Luna – how do you know this, you, how would -_

"You mean because I'm not good enough to know so much that's true, but that you can't prove – that's it, isn't it? But you know the truth, Draco. You learned it through your own eyes and ears. The muggleborn girl who could learn any spell, faster than Merlin; the halfblood boy who destroyed your halfblood master – you know, don't you? The truth?"

And the one million things that come flooding across his thoughts amuse and startle her and make her smile; so many times, a luminous vision of her – and there is Snape, Severus Snape, advising Draco to form his own opinions, to take off the dark glasses that his father had bound across his vision – and Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore standing before him and smiling at the point of Draco's wand, and saying _No_. No, you will not do this, because you are not a killer. _Not a killer_.

The essential nature of the man revealed itself like the opening petals of a battered flower. Luna saw the absence of aggression that is the method and the madness of the slayers among men -

And _he_ saw it. He saw the truth deep inside himself; too raw and painful a wound, too deep to share with so much of a stranger as this _Luna_.

And she saw this, and so she began to speak.

A/N: Five done, half way, how fun!

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	6. Chapter 6

_~Drabble Collection: In Search Of Wonderland~_

**VI**

**Alice Knows Where Green Grows**

**(Sometimes The Grass Is Very Far Indeed)**

"When I was nine years old, my mother died. She was not killed – she was experimenting with something new, she loved to play with magic, but that day it went quite extraordinarily wrong. My father couldn't bear to blame her, so he blamed the Nargles instead – but I knew, because she had told me, that sometimes being careful is not enough."

Her eyes were not on him, but he felt her words as weight.

"Everyone makes mistakes."

He heard the echo of his father speaking behind his consciousness, telling him the same thing, but with that inevitable caveat -

_Everyone makes mistakes, but Malfoys are not everyone. _

He knew Luna could hear him – what he was thinking, the roil of confusion that had been dredged up in him – but she just kept speaking, going on in her calm, implacable way; the way she had always spoken to everyone when she was not making light of the truth with nonsense.

"It took me a long time to accept my mother's mistake; an entire year, and longer – because I was so young, I think, and because the truth is never the thing we want to confront; sometimes we pick something more painful just to distract us. Do you know what I mean, Draco?

"It was like that all the time that Voldemort had me captive; Bellatrix was very inventive, but she didn't know the things about me that could really hurt me. Only I did, and by the time she was through I had nowhere to go but into worse thoughts than what they had done...there wasn't really anything, though, after a while. Just earlier memories of other tortures, and that day my mother died, and sometimes...

She took a deep breath.

"Sometimes, depending on what was done to me, I thought the worst gift of all was the gift that was the reason they had taken me -"

And she smiled then, sensing his surprise, his confusion.

"Not my _sight_, Draco. That was a useless thing for Voldemort's purposes, and he feared a seer with all that was left of his soul. No...I had been taken because of _Harry's_ gift. _Friends_. It's a kind of love, you know? And I had given up hope and faith in it until you came, and brought me water -"

And the smile grew wider on her face.

"Yes, and sandwiches too, Draco. I ate them, later. But it was the water – it was _you_ that saved me."

He stared very intently into her eyes, seeking the mystery of how she could be mocking him, for he had never saved anyone or anything in his life. Hadn't had the desire to -

But his own thoughts betrayed him, for he could not help but listen to them when he knew that Luna could too.

_Fire, screaming after his friend – girls in the Slytherin dormitories, half-raped and grateful to be rescued from a brute – the death he could not take - "You are not a killer, Draco -" - a kneazle kitten found motherless and left with the gamekeeper, that oaf – Luna, who had suffered at his father's hands, Luna pouring that water down over her skin as if it could heal all wounds -_

Damn it, but _hadn't had the desire_ wasn't true; it had never been true. He had wanted to save _everyone_, _always_, but he had never been given a chance, had never been as good at it as he wanted, and he was always too proud, too arrogant -

_I was a fool._

And Luna smiles and says not a word; he can see the change for himself this time, the shivering of magic across his fur that is the passage of of shimmering gold taking the place of the dim, white color.

A/N: Changes be; more coming, see?

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	7. Chapter 7

_~Drabble Collection: In Search Of Wonderland~_

**VII**

**When The Rabbit Is Gold He Glitters**

**(But That Is Not The Most Beautiful Thing)**

The change stays, and as it happens and Draco feels the shift inside himself, he knows again the meaning of the _truth_. This is a deeper thing than any potion could tear from him; this is not the truth of _veritaserum_ but the kind that comes from behind and below the heartbeat; the kind that resonates and leaves a shiver on the skin.

He is becoming _himself_, for the first time in his life; he is settling his thoughts without the shield and patina of false belief, without the aid of things that he has known for a decade and more to be patently untrue -

There is no more need to hide his hope, or hang his future with the ghosts of his past.

_Everything dark that dreamed inside me was a lie, except the lie itself._

He stares at Luna, shivering in his fur, and lets her reach out and stroke the soft length of his ears, down his back along the golden fur that shimmers under her touch. He wants to speak to her, wants to be able to order his thoughts without sending them out to her mishandled and unorganized and full of secret feelings; there is a jumble inside him, and she knows it already. He is changing quickly – maybe too quickly -

Maybe not quickly enough?

Draco sleeps, and wakes, and sleeps, and wakes – a week of days, wondering, waiting, thinking and listening; each day, a Healer comes three times a day with food for Luna and food for him. Each day, Luna shares with him a story.

What really happened at the meetings of the so-famous Dumbledore's Army -

What it was the sorting hat heard and saw upon her head -

The names of the few she called friends in Hogwarts -

The Giant Squid's favorite places to have scratched -

A trip she had made to Sweden once with her father -

The truth about magical creatures the world could not see -

What it meant to have _sight_, and when it had first come to her -

Days she remembered from the bliss of childhood, before pain had taught her its meaning.

Some are stories he knows from the other side, and with thoughts that spin out wildly among the strands of memory, he responds, shares, opens – he has no choice, cannot keep his brain from thinking – it is all that sustains him, the fact that while his body may be changed, beneath the golden fur and mask of fangs he is still Draco – even if he is not sure, as the days pass, that he is still _Malfoy_ -

Not a Malfoy his father would understand, or agree to; not a bigot, not blind, his eyes open now and turned toward -

But that is a thought that Draco shuts off before it can tumble him into _more _trouble, and if Luna is surprised by that, she does not say a thing.

A/N: Things do be happening, teehee. That's all from me from – except chapters that be...coming!

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	8. Chapter 8

_~Drabble Collection: In Search Of Wonderland~_

**VIII**

**Alice Who Disbelieves In Beauty**

**(Until She Shines Brighter Than Gold)**

Their swift progress in restoring Draco to something like normal is pleasing to Luna, but there is a hint of regret in that pleasure because ending this time with him will send her back to the everyday world she lives in – a world in which she fits no better than she did at Hogwarts.

Adults are less cruel than children in some ways, and more cruel in others; there are laws among adults to protect her clothes and her shoes, her jewelry and her favorite eagle-feather quill...but there are no laws about whispers, about old nicknames that cause new pain, about old silences that swell up and refuse to vanish in the name of _please_.

She can tell, talking to him, listening to the shifting flurry of his thoughts, that Draco is changing – more than she hoped, more than she believed possible. The first day, there had only been a single memory giving her hope that he might actually achieve some kind of freedom, some escape from the shape he had trapped himself in unknowing -

And then there had been progress, quick and sharp and obvious and encouraging, even if now she knew he woke every morning disappointed that the furious fangs were still gleaming from beneath his twitching nose. All she knows is that there must be some final admission – that whatever he is still holding back, it is the keystone, the tumbler jammed in the lock, the last piece of the puzzle to set him free. She wonders if there is anything else she can say, anything else she can share that will help him, but she has no more memories, no more gifts of wisdom, only feelings and stories to give now.

The stories are easy enough; she has, if nothing else, lived an_ interesting_ life. Interesting is good; it draws Draco out of self-pity and frustration and despair, it lets him know her, and the more he knows her the more he trusts her and is willing to share.

It did not take him long to catch on to how much of his _self_ lies open to her, but he has become aware that the only way to keep her from knowing a thing is not to think of a thing...

So she tells her tales, and lets him listen, and keeps the secrets she is learning to herself.

The feelings, though -

Occasionally, she speaks of them; occasionally, she talks of love, and longing, of life and death, of friendship and family -

But not often. There is a blankness in Draco's eyes that scares her aware from those words; a blankness in his _thoughts_ that scares her even more. It occurs to her after a week what is happening inside him; that the feelings he has turned off have been left that way for a long, long time.

This is the last piece of the puzzle she has been looking for, and which she does not yet know how to touch. She _knows_; everything withing the whirlwind of his being tells her this, even as the other things he is thinking defy all belief.

_Luna – in the darkness – in the manor – Luna, under the hands of my father – under the hands of my aunt – luminous Luna – how did she shine, then? How was I enough to change the agony and __give her back hope?_

_Luna, it was just water._

_I was never good, even then._

_I stared - _

_I watched when I should have turned away._

_Luminous Luna, I saw -_

_But it was just water, after all._

_Just water, that's not enough -_

_That's not enough to make me fall in love -_

_Is it?_

A/N: No words but Onwards!

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	9. Chapter 9

_~Drabble Collection: In Search Of Wonderland~_

**IX**

**The Rabbit Knows Late Is Better Than Never**

**(It Is Better To Come Prepared)**

It is on the eleventh night of their time together that Luna catches so much of the truth from him. His thought is a question he would never ask aloud, but has not been able to stop himself from wondering, a thought that rasps again and again at her awareness until the answer makes itself known within her, a sweet, smooth-surfaced wound.

_Could she love me? If I love her – but...could she love me?_

Draco's thoughts were enough to wash away the sins of his father; still, they were not enough for Draco to wash away his _sins as the son_. There is a burning inside him and in his own shape it would have been tears; it is guilt, and regret, and the wish that the had done other things, or done the things that he had chosen _better_.

Like Luna, he knows what it is like to have no friends – but it was all his fault, _his_ fault that he never knew love in any shape at all. His mother had offered it to him, and he had rejected it to follow in his father's footsteps; his aunt had offered it to him, and he had rejected it because by then those footsteps had been fully visible to him, and he had seen that the tracks were full of blood, and all she was, and his father was, repelled him. Once or twice a schoolmate had turned to him, and despite his own desire to love and to be loved, he had rejected them – because there was too much vulnerability in admitting he wanted someone to care...because he had still been waiting, for no reason at all, for someone to tell him that he had been _chosen_.

There had never been romance – there had only been Pansy clinging, her eyes not on him but on the mountains of gold heaped behind the Malfoy name...and Daphne...and Astoria...and several others, all the same...

Except Luna, who he had fallen in love with in her agony, who he had never seen at her best, who he had known for so long as only an illuminated outline, a soft enfleshment of everything lovely and precious that could beckon his spirit awake -

Not perfect, his Luna, not an _ordinary_ beauty, but exactly what he wanted – what he needed, just as much as the truth.

"But I am no beauty at all, Draco -"

She sensed a whirl of angry confusion and embarrassment that was beyond and behind his many thoughts. There was only one thing she could think to say that might calm and quiet him, even if it opened up an endless saga of sorrows for her to say it.

"And I do love you – I _do_ love you. Because you stood and stared. Because you watched when you might have turned away –"

The tears come from nowhere, enough for both of them, and run over her cheeks and her fingers as she tries to wipe them away.

A/N: Almost to the end! One left!

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	10. Chapter 10

_~Drabble Collection: In Search Of Wonderland~_

**X**

**Alice Was Prepared For Ever After**

**(Never Came Along Too Late For Tea)**

Draco shivers, twitches, hops close to her and presses himself against her breast; he turns his rabbit-face up to her cheek, and licks at the tears as they fall, and listens to her sobs feeling that his heart might break. He could save her, if he was only himself again – he could tell her all the truths she needs to hear. He does not even notice the moment in which the gnashing fangs have vanished; there is too much howling within him, too much longing, too much pain.

"It's just water, Draco, just water -"

Draco is changing, as if those were the magic words. He is changing, becoming, stretching, elongating, his body responding to his will and the will of his magic as it should have done all along.

He comes into his own flesh speaking, with words on his lips that wrap around Luna even as his arms do, holding her close, steadying her body as she rocks with sobs; he presses his lips against her mouth, tastes the salt of her tears on his own tongue, the chocolate that she had been eating while she sat beside him, talking – something clear and clean and perfect, something that is unnameable except as Luna or a thousand things.

_Luna_.

She is luminous now as she was then; even her tears seem glowing to him, and Draco grasps her hands so tightly she gasps in pain and sets his heart thumping with memory.

"You would've repaid your debt, you know – except you didn't have one. You could've paid me back for saving you by saving me – except that all I did was conjure you a bucket of water. You could've just turned away and let what was be – except that I love you, Luna."

He gives more of a kiss to her this time; his words are still echoing in her head, and she tastes sweet water and sunshine – incongruous, incomprehensible.

When he steps back, his hands are still on her hands, their fingers twining around each other as if by instinct; Luna is trembling, but the only feeling she knows in that moment is joy.

"Luna? Are you...all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Draco – conjure me a bucket of water, will you? Only...I've been trying for years, and I've never been able to get it quite right."

She stood, and reached to the shoulder of her robe, and undid the fastening there.

"I should have known it wasn't the _water _that I was missing – just you."

Draco reaches for the wand in his sleeve, conjures a plain wooden bucket full of water, and a plate of sandwiches.

"For _after_," he explains.

She smiles, and glows.

A/N: And that is the end of that completely random, totally unexpected, what the hell am I doing anyway writing this for nine hours straight, fic. Hope you enjoyed it – now, back to noveling and the Bridge of Dreams!

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